As students rushed towards the quad on the first day of Club Fair on Sept. 26, in order to be the first in line to sign up for clubs and get free food, they were actually surprised to find the setup relatively uncrowded, compared to previous years.
This was due to the Club Fair being planned over the course of multiple days compared to 2016 and prior, when the Club Fair was just a single day, as well as introducing an open-campus lunch policy.
Last year, the organizers of Club Fair spread the event over three consecutive days. This year, club commissioners Cameron Lin and Samyu Iyer consolidated the event to two days — a change enabling students to sample various clubs without being overwhelmed by their choices.
On the first day, 25 academic clubs such as Science, RISE and App Development clubs had the chance to present themselves in the quad. Thirty one arts, cultural and service oriented clubs such as Chinese, Culinary and Poetry clubs advertised the following day.
Since then, Club Days have become increasingly fluid, with both officers and commissioners accustomed to the preparation and execution of a successful event.
“I feel Club Fair went pretty well this year,” senior club commissioner Cameron Lin said. “We were really happy with the two-day club fair; I think it helped to organize things a little bit better.”
Another change that came to this year’s Club Day was that upperclassmen were still allowed to have lunch off campus.
According to Lin, an open campus resulted in an easier Club Day for all because many upperclassmen are already involved in clubs and didn’t need to participate, allowing the underclassmen to have more space to explore. This change gave upperclassmen the regular freedom of leaving campus, instead of being restricted for an event they might not otherwise attend.
With the event becoming increasingly focused and audience oriented, veteran club participates such as senior RISE president Ethan Ko noticed that the recent changes benefited the clubs in addition to student experience.
“There was definitely more genuine interest, with people taking their time to ask what the club was about, and what they were planning to do,” Ko said. “These things definitely showed people much more about RISE, which contributed to much higher attendance during our last few meetings.”
Club commissioners are also taking extra steps this year to improve communication with all clubs so that all club officers are up to date. To do this, club commissioners are increasing their use of the already established Club Presidents’ Facebook group this year.
“‘The presidents’ group is just a way for [club commissioners] Samyu and I to keep in contact with presidents of each club so that they know what’s going on and to remind them to update the calendar that we have each year for their meetings,” Lin said. “It’s a really easy way for us to communicate with them.”
With the minor changes that came this year, Club Day once again gave students the opportunity to join the diverse family of clubs on campus. Lin said she hopes that Club Days gradually improve with organization in future years, and that students will have a chance to preview all clubs during the event.
“I think there are some things we could work on for next year,” Lin said. “I know that there were a couple extra clubs added each day, so finalizing the Club Day quad layout diagram earlier so that all of the clubs were on it could help to improve.”